


Pains of Adolescence

by Tren



Category: Vinland Saga (Anime), Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21905671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tren/pseuds/Tren
Summary: Thorfinn's adolescence, unsurprisingly, consists of emotions he has little control over and bad decisions.Askeladd wishes it wasn't the case.
Relationships: Askeladd/Thorfinn (Vinland Saga)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 129
Collections: Happy Belated Treatmas 2019





	Pains of Adolescence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reine_des_corbeaux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [reine_des_corbeaux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux) in the [happy_belated_treatmas_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/happy_belated_treatmas_2019) collection. 



> I actually only saw anime, but I really loved your prompt.

"I think Thorfinn has been more grumpy than usual," Askeladd said, as he watched his men. They had just finished raiding yet another village and their spirits were high. However, Askeladd found himself unable to relax, concerned about the disgruntled child in their crew.

Not that it was easy to judge Thorfinn’s grumpiness level when he constantly looked like someone killed his dad. Which admittedly Askeladd _did_ do. Still, that was no reason to feel down all the time. The kid should brighten up a bit.

"You haven't noticed?" Bjorn asked, taking another swing of ale. He seemed more focused on the food before him than the conversation. Still, just as Askeladd hoped, he seemed to know something. Even though he gave an impression of being a brute, Bjorn was pretty observant.

"Notice what?" Askeladd asked, as he leisurely watched his ale stir as he tilted his cup.

"Kid has a crush on you," Bjorn explained matter-of-factly, as he resumed devouring roasted sheep meat.

Askeladd only raised his brow, because there was no way this was true. Thorfinn hated him.

"You must be joking."

"My jokes are better than that. And haven't you noticed that he's been constantly following you recently?"

Askeladd gave this a bit of thought. Thorfinn had a habit of giving him hateful looks whenever he could, so it wasn't that strange for him to be around. But now that Askeladd thought about it, it was true that recently Thorfinn had spent more time near him. He wasn't very obvious about it, which was why Askeladd didn't realize it until now.

"Hmmmm… true. He's been hanging around more, but I'm not sure why it would give you the idea that kid has a crush on me," he finally said. He took a small sip of ale, hoping that it would chase away the budding worries.

"I saw him watching you bathe too," Bjorn replied, as he picked another piece of meat from the plate. "He was so absorbed that he didn't even notice me. Definitely not what I expected to see while picking mushrooms."

Bjorn bit into his food, clearly not bothered by what he just said, but Askeladd found himself almost choking on his ale.

It wasn't a development he expected. Though it made some sort of twisted sense that Thorfinn, who spent the last few years focused solely on killing Askeladd, would develop some confusing feelings the second he hit adolescence. The kid seemed to collect bad life decisions as if they were war trophies. It would probably have been weirder if he had fallen in love with some girl like any other kid.

"And you didn't do anything about it?" Askeladd asked, because he didn't like that he was only learning about this now.

Bjorn shrugged. "It didn't look like Thorfinn was planning to attack you, so there was no reason for me to do anything. And I had mushrooms to pick. Besides, it gives you an advantage against him, doesn't it?" he pointed out.

Askeladd put down his cup, while Bjorn pointed towards one of the buildings.

"He's watching even now."

Askeladd managed to see Thorfinn staring at them from the shadows of the building before quickly turning his head away upon being noticed. He was now pretending he had been minding his own business and only just happened to glance in their direction.

"See him? He's been looking this way ever since we sat down," Bjorn explained. He chuckled, as if he found the whole thing really amusing, and returned to his food.

Askeladd remained silent as he pondered on this new development. Bjorn was right, but at the same time he was missing the broader picture. Askeladd only had an advantage as long as he had a good grasp on Thorfinn’s reactions. Which had been easy so far since Thorfinn seemed to only grow in stature, not in character.

However, now there was an unknown element to him. This was bad because it could throw Askeladd's expectations off. Thorfinn was a double-edged sword. Askeladd needed to retain his control over him, or else things could end badly.

He needed to talk with Thorfinn.

*

Thorfinn seemed to have disappeared shortly after being noticed. Askeladd walked around the village pretending to be checking on his men. They were too caught up in drinking and festivities to notice that Askeladd wasn't in fact paying attention to them.

It was an hour later when Askeladd finally found the kid near an abandoned house hidden on the outskirts of the forest. It was so far away that Askeladd had to concentrate to hear the ruckus his men were making.

Thorfinn had carved a circle in a tree and was now using it to practice throwing his knives. Askeladd watched him silently. The sun had almost completely disappeared, so Askeladd expected him to stop, but Thorfinn seemed too caught up in his training to care. Even after the darkness descended on the forest, he kept throwing his knives.

It didn’t take Askeladd long to realize Thorfinn was doing extremely poorly. He kept missing his target with most throws and even when he did hit it was rarely near the center. Thorfinn was obviously distracted. His aim was usually much better than that.

Askeladd made a quiet sigh and left his hiding spot. He didn’t try to be quiet, but even then Thorfinn seemed not to notice him. Or maybe he was just ignoring Askeladd.

It was always hard to tell with Thorfinn.

“That’s really diligent of you, practicing your throws this late at night,” Askeladd said. He thought that Thorfinn was just ignoring him, so he was surprised to see him lose his balance and mess up his throw to the point where the knife didn’t even hit the tree. It flew past it, landing somewhere in the undergrowth.

“Though I guess, it has its downsides. Finding that knife in this darkness won’t be easy,” Askeladd added when Thorfinn glared at him. 

“What are you doing here?” Thorfinn asked. “Shouldn’t you be drinking your ass off with the stolen booze?”

If Askeladd wasn’t looking for it, he probably wouldn’t have noticed, but Thorfinn did sound a bit different. Normally his voice was filled almost exclusively with anger and disdain, but there was a hint of self-consciousness in it right now.

“Just checking on you. You’ve been staring at me earlier, I wondered if something was up… Other than your usual hateful glances,” Askeladd said, testing the waters.

Thorfinn’s scowl deepened, but then his face twisted in sudden confusion.

“You are the one acting strange,” Thorfinn hissed, accusingly. “Since when do you care?!”

He turned away from Askeladd, clearly frustrated. He took the remaining knife and threw it at the tree with far more strength than necessary. Askeladd watched as it flew straight at the target. However, as the knife reached the center of the circle, it recoiled upon hitting the trunk and fell to the ground.

Thorfinn stared at it as if betrayed. Askeladd couldn’t help himself, as he started to chuckle.

“You won’t kill anyone like that, you know,” he said through laughter. Thorfinn shot him an annoyed glare and went to retrieve his knife. Askeladd wondered if he would go deeper into the forest to find the other one, but Thorfinn seemed to decide against it. He stopped before the tree, holding the knife he had just picked from the ground.

“So why are you really here? If you want me to do something you should stop beating around the bush and just say it. You already know what I want in return,” Thorfinn demanded. He hadn’t turned around to face Askeladd.

Honestly, it was moments like that made dealing with Thorfinn tricky. He was so easy to manipulate that it was sometimes hard to remember that underneath all the hot-blooded emotions he had some smarts. Askeladd hadn’t planned on revealing why he came to talk. He just hoped to get a better read on Thorfinn.

“I wanted to figure out what’s wrong. So far you have proven beyond a doubt that there is something bothering you to the point that your combat skills are affected,” Askeladd explained, pointing with his chin at the direction of tree Thorfinn had used for practice. “It will be a problem if you perform so poorly during the next battle.”

Thorfinn scowled. It was obvious that he was the one most frustrated with the sudden drop in his skill.

“I won’t get distracted during battle,” he insisted, but Askeladd could tell Thorfinn didn’t really believe his own words.

“Look, if something is bothering you, you can talk to me about it,” Askeladd said. Thorfinn didn’t reply, but just gave Askeladd a look as if the man had just fallen on his head and started spewing nonsense. It was an expected reaction. “I’m not one to spill my men’s secrets. And once you kill me, I won’t be able to tell anyone anyway.”

“I’m definitely not telling you,” Thorfinn said strongly.

“Okay, then how about you tell Bjorn?” Askeladd suggested. That was the suggestion he actually had in mind, but presenting it as alternative would hopefully make Thorfinn more likely to consider it. Askeladd believed that giving Thorfinn a way to vent would be beneficial and Bjorn was already aware of the situation.

Thorfinn blinked at him.

“Bjorn?! You expect me to ask _him_?” he repeated in disbelief.

“He’s actually a pretty good listener,” Askeladd said in Bjorn’s defense. “He doesn’t care most of the time, so you don’t have to worry about what you say to him.”

Thorfinn’s face clearly showed that he’d rather explode from his bottled up emotions than ask either Askeladd or Bjorn for emotional support.

Askeladd sighed. This was going as terribly as he was afraid it would. Time to apply more pressure.

“Thorfinn, I get it that you don’t trust us enough to open up, but if you start being a dead weight we will stop taking you with us,” Askeladd threatened. This drew a reaction from Thorfinn, who looked utterly offended. He tightened the grip on the knife he was still holding.

“Tell me that when it happens,” Thorfinn hissed. It seemed his short temper was flaring again. Time to try and temper the hot steel.

“I’m just saying that now, so you can deal with whatever is troubling you,” Askeladd said, trying to sound like a responsible leader. 

Thorfinn chuckled humorlessly. Askeladd didn’t like that reaction—he didn’t recognize it.

“Whatever is troubling me? Really?” Thorfinn asked. His eyes looked much more feral than before. “You’ve been standing there talking about it, but you never actually asked what my problem is. You didn’t even try to make me say it. You think it isn’t obvious that you already have an idea what my problem is?!”

The atmosphere changed in an instant and Askeladd found himself blindsided. He didn’t expect Thorfinn to figure him out. The brat usually wasn’t perceptive enough for that.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Don’t lie to me, Baldy!” Thorfinn shouted, interrupting him. “You think I’m happy about it?! You think coming here to yap at me will help?!”

Askeladd fell quiet, because for once Thorfinn had a point—Askeladd had no idea how to solve this problem. He hoped coming here would help him figure it out, but if anything he had realized how much out of his depth he was.

He could easily manipulate Thorfinns negative emotions, but he wasn’t sure how to go about these new ones. If he had any influence in the matter, he’d rather Thorfinn never developed any feelings beyond hatred in the first place (and he had a strong feeling Thorfinn shared this sentiment). Kid had little control over his emotions already and now they were more dangerous than ever.

And unfortunately, the only surefire way Askeladd knew of ridding someone of their emotion was to make sure they were too dead to experience any.

“What are you getting quiet about? Were you really that dumb?!”

Askeladd stayed silent. It was extremely obvious that as always Thorfinn’s anger remained completely misaimed. He wasn’t angry at Askeladd as much at himself. The only way he knew how to resolve problems was through stabbing them, but even he must have realized there wasn’t such a simple solution to this problem.

“Didn’t you hear I called you dumb, idiot?!” Thorfinn continued, probably unable to handle the idea of uncomfortable silence.

“I heard,” Askeladd replied calmly. Judging by Thorfinn’s expression, the steadiness of the response he got disgruntled him even more. 

“Then say something!” Thorfinn said, pointing his finger. Askeladd wondered if he was self-aware enough to know that all this posturing was nothing more than a front to hide his fears. “Or are you going to agree you are nothing more than a shitty old man?”

“I wouldn’t go so far, but you are probably right that I’m wasting my time here,” Askeladd said, turning around. “Whatever problems you have they are your own. If you wish to stew in your feelings then feel free to do so.”

Askeladd was about to walk away, hoping that Thorfinn’s misguided feelings would be less permanent than his equally misguided revenge, but he was stopped. He turned around, surprised to find Thorfinn holding his wrist with an iron grip.

“So what do you think I should do?” Thorfinn asked. Askeladd couldn’t help feeling disturbed by the fact that Thorfinn wasn’t shouting anymore. Instead his voice was eerily steady but with a foreboding hint of desperation—like the calm before the storm.

Askeladd found himself hesitate. Thorfinn seemed even more volatile than usual. Giving a wrong answer could result in Askeladd’s death.

Unfortunately, Thorfinn didn’t take well to his silence.

“Or maybe I should just deal with it like your men do—take what I want by force,” Thorfinn hissed ominously.

For the first time in a long while, Askeladd found himself actually panicking. The clearing they were in was too far from where his men were camped. Nobody would hear him or come to help him. Admittedly, Askeladd had his sword, while Thorfinn only had one dagger, but it wasn’t a big enough advantage to assure Askeladd’s victory.

And he had to win. He couldn’t let… _this happen_. He’d rather die fighting than get taken and shamed like his mother was. The idea repulsed him to his very core.

Suddenly, the hold on his wrist was gone. Askeladd realized Thorfinn had taken a few steps back and was now clutching his mouth with his free hand. His gaze was unfocused and he seemed to be shivering slightly.

Thorfinn looked exactly as nauseated as Askeladd felt.

Thorfinn’s withdrawal should have come as a relief, but instead Askeladd found himself feeling nothing but coldness. The old feelings he had usually kept assuaged were now flaring like a reopened wound. 

It was hard to even look at Thorfinn right now.

“I will kill you,” Thorfinn said. His voice was shaky, but for once Askeladd didn’t feel like pointing out the obvious vulnerability. “It doesn’t matter… my feelings don’t matter… No matter what, I will complete my revenge.”

He sounded more like he wanted to convince himself than anyone else. It was almost laughable, but Askeladd didn’t feel like laughing.

“So _you_ ,” Thorfinn said, pointing his finger at Askeladd and finally looking straight at him again. His gaze was slightly less feral, but still deeply unsettling. “Stay away! Leave me alone! Don’t…”

He trailed off, the last sentence barely a mutter. His gaze lowered, as if he couldn’t look at the older man anymore.

Askeladd didn’t have to be told twice, turning around and walking off. He wasn’t running, but his steps were just a bit faster than usual. He didn’t look back, but even as he distanced himself, he couldn’t quite shake off Thorfinn’s last words. They lingered like a poison in his mind.

_Don’t come tempting me like that._

Askeladd would make sure to never again meet alone with Thorfinn. At least not until this terrible adolescent phase of his ended.


End file.
